(JNS.org) The Shurat HaDin-Israel Law Center, a Tel Aviv-based legal rights organization, has filed a lawsuit against Twitter over the social media giant’s alleged role in aiding and abetting the Islamic State terror group in attacks in Paris (November 2015) and Brussels (March 2016).
Shurat HaDin filed the lawsuit on behalf of the families of victims of the aforementioned terror attacks.
“This is the first lawsuit to document Twitter’s key role in the rise of ISIS to become the most feared terrorist organization in the world, and to detail how ISIS used Twitter specifically in connection with two of the worst terror attacks in Europe’s recent history,” Nitsana Darshan-Leitner, director of Shurat HaDin, said in a statement.
“Among social media platforms, Twitter has most brazenly refused to cut off its services to terrorists, taking the position that ‘the tweets must flow’ even if it means assisting in mass murders,” she said.
The victims described in the lawsuit include Alexander Pinczowski, 29, and his sister Sascha Pinczowski, 26, who were killed by an Islamic State suicide bomber at the Brussels Airport in March 2016, as well as Nohemi Gonzalez, 26, who was killed by Islamic State as part of the coordinated Paris terror attacks in November 2015 that killed 130 people.
Through the lawsuit, titled Cain v. Twitter, the victims’ families claim that Islamic State has used Twitter “as a weapon of terror, including through bots, special apps and ‘hashtag hijacking’ to inflate its image, recruit members and grow into the most feared terrorist organization in the world.”
“This lawsuit reveals direct connections between Twitter and terror, and when justice is done in this case, it will force Twitter and others to conclude that supporting terror does not pay,” Darshan-Leitner said.